Leo Hohmann

An NGO that gets tens of millions in U.S. taxpayer money to resettle foreign refugees into dozens of U.S. cities is being investigated for corruption involving contracts with Turkish companies.

The International Rescue Committee is one of the nine volunteer aid agencies, also called VOLAGs, that contract with the federal government to resettle refugees into the United States from Syria, Somalia, Burma, Iraq, Bhutan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

New York-based IRC, headed by former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General within the U.S. Agency for International Development for bid rigging and bribery that allegedly took place among its staff members lining up supplies and services for displaced Syrians in Turkey, according to government documents turned over to WND from the Inspector General’s Office.

In November 2013, Miliband’s organization gave billionaire George Soros its highest award, the Freedom Award, and Soros responded by donating $1 million to the IRC.

Miliband is also a close friend of Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the same time he was foreign secretary.

But his organization is now under the microscope for its alleged involvement in a corruption scandal that so far has not been reported in the establishment media.

USAID’s Office of the Inspector General’s semi-annual report to Congress said 14 companies and individuals had been suspended as part of a “complex investigation into cross-border aid programs.”

“Some early concerns about these practices surfaced through one USAID implementer, which identified and self-reported procurement irregularities affecting its programs. Aid organizations providing life-saving assistance in Syria and the surrounding region face an extremely high-risk environment. Lack of fully competitive procurements, insufficient oversight, and the absence of adequate internal controls for obtaining, storing, and delivering relief supplies can jeopardize the integrity of these relief efforts and deny critical aid to those in need.

“To date, OIG’s investigation has established grounds resulting in the suspension of 14 entities and individuals involved with aid programs from Turkey. As a result of the suspensions, these parties are no longer able to receive U.S. government awards.

“A portion of USAID-funded cross-border programs in Syria were suspended as a result of this investigation, and several NGOs delivering aid to Syria have

The IRC is one of the three international aid groups to have had millions of dollars in funding withdrawn over alleged bid-rigging and bribery. In January IRC terminated two corrupt staffers in Turkey (See pages 41-42 of OIC report to Congress).

‘A sophisticated operation’

A senior USAID official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Telegraph that private Turkish companies had sold cut-rate blankets and other supplies at vastly inflated prices and pocketed the difference.

“What became clear in the course of this investigation was this was a pretty sophisticated operation,” the USAID official told the Telegraph.

The resettlement process is like planting “seedlings,” as White House immigration adviser Cecilia Muñoz described it in a conference call last year. And these seedlings will be nurtured by the government and its army of left-wing NGOs until able to eventually rise up and overtake their host communities.

“They’re all scouting around now, not just IRC but all of the VOLAGs, for new places to get these Syrians placed,” Corcoran said. “That’s the problem they have now, the other places are filled up, the limiting factor being housing. There is not enough subsidized housing to accommodate all these refugees, so they’re looking and scouting all the time for new cities in which to send them. Jobs, too, are scarce. There’s not enough places for these people to work.